people in germany will vote in a general election which is expected to see chancellor merkel and her christian democrats win a fourth term in office. opinion polls suggest the nationalist party afd will be the first far—right populist movement to take seats since world war ii. north korea's foreign minister has told the un general assembly that president trump's threats made it inevitable north korean rockets would, as he put it, visit the entire us mainland. the comments come as the us flew bombers and fighterjets over international waters east of north korea. iran says it has successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometres. the us has warned that tests could jeopardise the deal that ended sanctions in return for the halt of its nuclear programme. iran denies its missile development breaches the un resolution. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn has told delegates gathering for the party's annual conference, that they're "in a moment of great change" and must "prepa re to form a government".

he says grass roots supporters will dominate the conference, meaning some shadow cabinet members and labour mayors won't get the chance to speak from the main stage. 0ur deputy political editor john pienaar reports from brighton. you would never know he had lost the election, but to the labour army of corbyn supporters, he is a winner — the leader who ran the tories close when few believed he was a winner at all. their leader, who is now setting about shifting power from the mps who often doubted him to the grass roots members, many of whom trusted him and bought into his socialist vision from the start. his message — he was heading not just a party but a movement, and one that could win. to bring about the socialjustice we want, to bring about the society we want, the unity we want! and together, together, together, we can, and will do it! thank you very much. cheering.

the leader's plan is to give the grass roots, many of them members of the pro—corbyn group momentum, more power and more of a say. they will get more time to speak in their conference, in future, more say in policy—making, and maybe more power to choose the next leader. doubters have been won over, the faithful have never been happier. it is really about grass roots policies and real change, not trying to just be tory—lite. politically, have you got the socialist party you wanted? absolutely, yes. for no leader will ever be convinced of anything he said that there is sufficient there and in the team around him for him to have my backing. you're finally convinced about jeremy corbyn? i think so. so the man they call ‘jezza' is calling the shots. his election was a surprise. he swatted away a challenge. now he is unassailable

and his conference has cut the speaking time allowed to labour mps and mayors. i'm sorry to tell you this is a conference of the party, the largest party conferences ever been. we have tried to rebalance the speaking arrangements so there are shorter speeches and fewer speakers, and many more speeches from the floor. and many more most likely by supporters devoted to their leader. it won't be all love and loyalty this week but the doubters are to change tune, and those worried about brexit could be drowned out by his supporters. for better or worse, it isjeremy corbyn‘s party now. those who love it and those who don't now look strapped in for the ride. john pienaar, bbc news, brighton. now on bbc news, witness. hello and welcome to a special

edition of witness, with me, rebecca jones. i'm here at the british library to guide you through five moments in chinese history that helped shape the country. we'll meet an archaeologist who's worked on the terracotta army site for decades. a man who took part in the student protests at tienanmen square, and a former red guard. but our first witness is sidney rittenberg. he visited china as a gi during world war ii and stayed on. he joined the communist party. and, during china's civil war, he got to know the revolutionary leader, chairman mao. he was so idolised.

and it was so impossible to criticise him. he finally convinced himself that china needed an emperorfigure. i think mao, before coming to power and after coming to power, were two quite different personalities. but he was enormously courteous. he was disarming. he could make you forget that you were in the presence of someone from history. he was a large man and he had great personal dignity and was very easy to talk to. yunnan was the nerve centre of the entire communist movement. it was so rare in those days to have an american that spoke chinese. i was fascinated by the work they were doing.

and i decided to stay and act as an english language person for their radio programme. it was an atmosphere of great determination. i would say even of great pride and joy to be there, to be part of that movement, which people felt was building a new china. there was one american movie every week. i used to go interpret. and mao's favourite films by far where laurel and hardy, but they loved that. when mao laughed, he laughed like a baby laughs. like every muscle in his face was laughing. from brow to chin. i would go to the party headquarters and play chinese gin rummy cards.

they would all tease each other and cuff each other around and be very warm, but not with mao. he would sit there and nobody would tease him or cuff him around. i never felt that he was a friend. maybe i felt that because i could argue with him on occasion. mao always had a ruthless streak. i think mao never intended that people should die in the great famine in the great leap forward. but he didn't really make it stop. i think the official estimates from china run around 30 million. it was a disaster. i was suddenly arrested and held in solitary confinement

for six years in prison. the first year, in total darkness. when i heard in the prison that mao had died, i thought this was the most terrible blow that the world revolution could suffer. but i didn't shed a single tear. you know, i think mao was an extremely difficult character to analyse. he could do, and did do, good things for china that nobody else could have done. he also did terrible things for china that nobody else could have done. and sidney stayed in china until 1980 when he returned to the us. in the 1960s, chairman mao wanted to root out opposition to his leadership and rid the country of any semblance

of old chinese culture and history. at the forefront of the so—called cultural revolution, were the red guards, fanatical supporters. this man was a member of the red guards. in 9166, i was in middle school when the cultural revolution started. file: the biggest nation on earth, china, is in turmoil. is china's ageing leader losing control? has he gone mad driven to megalomania by the hysterical adoration of the teenage red guard? of course ijoined, it is glorious to join. i was totally poor. the energy, even

my life into it, to support whatever mao asked me to do. chairman mao had decided to mobilise young people as the driving force of a vast campaign to purify the communist party. there was to be a revolution, a cultural revolution, a revolution in people's thinking. we went to beijing. mao joined we went to beijing. maojoined us in the middle of the night. file: inspired by mao, the red guards went wild in to keep the revolution alive. they worshipped mao as their leader and followed his instruction without question. they consider long hair and western—style clothes un—communist. after reports of rattings,

beating up and even murder, the red guard seem to have gone too far. their leaders have told them to cool off. and go and help with the harvest. a man who has forged a new life himself and his family in the us. for decades, communist china's relationship with the us was difficult, to put it mildly. but things started to change in 1972 with president richard nixon's visit to meet chairman mao. the former diplomat winston lord was part of the delegation that travelled to china. file: today, president nixon is visiting china. the first american statesman to have set foot on chinese soil since chairman mao came to power. frankly, many of us were a little those appointed in the arrival arrangements.

this was a huge political event and we naively thought there would be big crowds. in fact, there were just a few people, but then we recognised again that this was in keeping with the realistic fact that we had been enemies for 22 years and you couldn't turn the page immediately. and so, these two great countries, the most powerful nation on earth, visits the most populous nation on earth. i was special assistant to henry kissinger, the national security adviser, and i was in charge of orchestrating and putting together the briefing books for the president for his trip to china. my first impressions of beijing was that it was very bleak and depressing. it was early drab. everyone is dressed the same. very few cars, mostly bicycles. we arrived at the guest house and to our surprise, they announced that chairman mao would like to see president nixon right away.

this was mao acting like a traditional chinese emperor, not given you any warning when you were going to be summoned to his presence. i have worked for many presidents, including several close up. president nixon was by far the most well versed and strategic in international relations. he was extraordinary. whatever his flars, one has to grant him that. as you person, you was quite shy. he was always somewhat ill at ease in engaging in banter or small talk. —— flaws. both sides had clear reasons for trying to reopen communications after 22 years of mutual enmity and indeed fighting each other in korea. when you meet someone of historic significance, you have to figure out whether you are impressed with the personality because you know he's important whether you would be impressed if you didn't know who he was. kissinger and i agreed that even if we went to a cocktail party

and mao was there and we didn't know him, he would have exuded some power and attraction. this was not to glorify him. he was a monster in many ways. the meeting itself puzzled us at first. it was only about one hour with translation. we immediately recognise the significance of this. the chairman was declaring visit a success from the very beginning. at the conclusion of the meeting, the chinese came in with photographs of all of us at the meeting. nixon and kissinger looted each other and then told mao that mr lord is never at this meeting, please cut him out of all the photos, because i was sitting next to kissinger. it was already humiliating for the secretary of state not to be at the meeting will be national security adviser was. but to have in addition to that some punk in his early 305 also sitting ina meeting... it's worth coming 16,000 milesjust

to stand here and see the wall. join me in raising your glasses to chairman mao and to the friendship of the chinese and american people. we were in the middle of a geopolitical earthquake. it was a combination of nerves of steel working on this, but also the sense that we were frankly in the midst of making history. winston lord, remembering a key moment in us—chinese relations. remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on or ourfilms along with more than 1000 radio programmes in our online archives. just go to our website. now to one of the greatest finds of the 20th century.

in the spring of 1974, local farmers in china accidentally uncovered the site of the vast terracotta army. our next witness is an archaeologist who has dedicated her career to the remarkable life—size figures. it is a vast pottery army slowly being unearthed from the tomb where it has lain for more than 2000 years. at one time, when a chinese... i've worked at the site for many years. she still works at the side of the terracotta army in xi'an. finally in 1919, chinese authorities crashed a popular movement in beijing. among those protesting was 18—year—old student. tiananmen square is a square design

to fit at least a couple of million people and that square was bumper—to—bumper full. you could feel at that time that something was going on. you could see millions of ordinary citizens of beijing blocking army lorries from coming in. 10,000 chinese troops have tried to seize control of the centre of peking tonight. but their attempt to sweep away the student demonstrators that have been camped in tiananmen square appeals to have failed. their demands for democracy, a free press and an end to fear. it was the last year of my high school studies. classmate of mine and me and five others we said "forget it, we're going". that was onjune 4.

the central television started to broadcast this ominous message repeatedly for quite a few hours. "citizens, please return to your homes, the army and the security forces are coming in to clear the city centre. if you disobey this order, you will be responsible for all the consequences." most decided to stay where they were. and then things started to unravel. you just heard banging. you start to hear those sounds. and then you start to see people bleeding, being carried to various hospitals around you. people crying and shouting. i felt numb. it was beyond anybody‘s comprehension. you focus your mind, you are trying to get

to a place of safety. maybe it's home, maybe somewhere else. for a moment, it could be just behind a dumpster, behind a rubbish bin or somewhere. you just wanted to go. i eventually got home. of course my mum was worried sick and she locked the doors and my brother and said we should find a kitchen knife or something and go out and do something. she said "you guys, don't be stupid. you cannot affect any change at this time. nothing." 0n the main road east of the square at 10:23am this morning, there was a sudden and deadly volley from the troops. i remember in the living room and hearing all this chaos going on around you.

the second day, well you still hear sporadic firing and nobody dared to venture too far away. you just put your head out, first the alleyway, and then on to the secondary roads and then trying to see what ever is going on. the first site was littered slippers, print out army trucks and i even saw two armoured personnel carriers burnt out from the inside. tangled bicycles definitely drove over by heavy vehicles. i felt an utter sense of desperation and utter despair. i didn't feel there was a future. i felt ijust need to go. my father at that time was in canada. he was able to apply for a family reunion visa for my mother, my brother and i. so i was one of the few fortunate ones. at that very moment. to leave. that's all from the special edition of witness to any british library. don't forget that we will be back

at the end of the month for another five extraordinary moment in history. for now, for me and the rest of the witness team, goodbye. hi there. yesterday, we had two types of weather through the afternoon. for a number of places, northern ireland, scotland, northern england, it stayed rather cloudy. this was one scene in buttermere, in cumbria. other places had glorious sunshine. good parts of southern england, and the midlands, and into wales had the best of that. where the sunshine came out, it became warm, with temperatures up to 21 celsius. that is 70 in fahrenheit. notably, across scotland, around the moray firth, temperatures were about six degrees above average for this time of year. looking at the weather, as we start the day today, we have a band of rain pushing east. as it does so, it will bump into high—pressure across scandinavia and europe. so it will be a slow—moving front. quite often, it will be weak as well. starting with a band of rain to start the day for western scotland. damp in northern ireland, and spits and spots of rain across west wales, devon, and cornwall, too. 12 to 15 degrees

in towns and cities. across central england it should stay dry with sunny spells all day. high cloud in the sky will make it hazy at times. you can see the rain does not move far from where it starts. it gradually trickles into central areas of scotland, with cloud breaks for eastern scotland, sunny spells will come through from time to time. northern ireland perhaps brightening up in the afternoon. across wales and south—west england, sunshine at a premium, quite often be cloudy with patches of rain. not rain all the time, but some on and off through the day. central and eastern england in the sunshine will be warmer. temperatures 22—23 celsius for a high. going through sunday evening, it looks like the rain will be pepping up. more persistent across scotland, western england and wales. we will see some fog patches form underneath underneath clearing skies in northern ireland, where things will turn out quite chilly. it could be a murky

start there on monday. monday morning, that fog will clear away slowly in northern ireland. this band of rain will weaken across scotland, west england and wales. after a cloudy start across eastern england, the cloud break up with sunny spells throughout. temperatures for most of us between 16—19 degrees celsius with that sunshine coming through northern ireland. once the fog clears out of the way. looking at the next few days, often the weather will be dry in the week ahead. warm as well with sunny spells. but a band of rain is coming through on thursday. and that's your weather. bye for now. hello, this is breakfast,

with naga munchetty and christian fraser. a show of force — us bombers fly close to north korea in another escalation of tensions over its nuclear programme. the war of words continues as pyongyang's foreign minister says president trump has now made it ‘inevitable' that north korean missiles will hit the us. good morning, it's sunday the 24th of september.

also ahead — as the labour conference gets under way, senior party figures write an open letter urging jeremy corbyn to offer a clear alternative to what they call the tories' "destructive" brexit. voters in europe's most powerful nation go to the polls — with german chancellor angela merkel expected to win a fourth term.